R – Filter by multiple patterns with filter() and str_detect()

rstringistringrtidyverse

I would like to filter a dataframe using filter() and str_detect() matching for multiple patterns without multiple str_detect() function calls. In the example below I would like to filter the dataframe df to show only rows containing the letters a f and o.

df <- data.frame(numbers = 1:52, letters = letters)
df %>%
    filter(
        str_detect(.$letters, "a")|
        str_detect(.$letters, "f")| 
        str_detect(.$letters, "o")
    )
#  numbers letters
#1       1       a
#2       6       f
#3      15       o
#4      27       a
#5      32       f
#6      41       o

I have attempted the following 

df %>%
    filter(
        str_detect(.$letters, c("a", "f", "o"))
     )
#  numbers letters
#1       1       a
#2      15       o
#3      32       f

and receive the following error

Warning message: In stri_detect_regex(string, pattern, opts_regex =
opts(pattern)) : longer object length is not a multiple of shorter
object length

Best Answer

The correct syntax to accomplish this with filter() and str_detect() would be

df %>%
  filter(
      str_detect(letters, "a|f|o")
  )
#  numbers letters
#1       1       a
#2       6       f
#3      15       o
#4      27       a
#5      32       f
#6      41       o
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